#devposts

[hawkinsrps]

The Aviators - The legendary Gryffindor quartet: dreamers, flyers, aspiring Aurors 

 “ from Bellavie (the mother hen) to Charles (their resident old man) to Leo (his own cheeky lil bloke) ”

[maximumridearchive]

Hi! My name is Nathan, and this is the official blog of the Maximum Ride Fandom Archive.

I intend for this blog to serve many purposes:

1. It's a place for me to note small changes to the site and plan upcoming additions.

2. The ask / submit feature is a painless way for other people to communicate with me -- anonymous asks are on. I will try to respond to messages within a reasonable amount of time, but please understand that I may be busy offline.

3. Reblogging / reposting things here is a quick way for me to file them for future use -- sometimes I post about things on my main blog that I intend to put on the site, then lose track. Hopefully this will help me remember...

[hawkinsrps]

I hate to break it to the collective rpc but the second I click on your rp main and it’s a tiny container theme.. I’m out

[hawkinsrps]

when will i have a chance to dedicate myself to the polyamorous ship i want and deserve 

[myungeunsgirl-blog]

i love yuhwan so much... but then i remember how hot he can look some moments and i remember how i can throw him into the pit of hell...

[justiceleagueinfinite]

Dev Post Digest: Greek Goddess Wonder Woman Availability

Welcome to the latest installment of Dev Post Digest, with an interesting note from last week regarding the GameStop-exclusive Protector's Edition of Infinite Crisis and its Greek Goddess Wonder Woman costume.

Celestrata on Greek Goddess Wonder Woman

The biggest draws of the Infinite Crisis Founders Program are the exclusive Renaissance Gaslight Batman and Arkham White Batman costumes, which will not available through any other means. When GameStop announced its Protector's Edition of IC, it listed "the exclusive Greek Goddess Wonder Woman costume" as part of the package. This left many completionists miffed at the prospect of spending an additional $60 for a single costume, particularly when a banner on the Infinite Crisis site claimed that the Protector's Edition only provided "early access" to Greek Goddess Wonder Woman.

So which was it—exclusivity, or early access? Protector Tero took to the forums with precisely that question, and received a helpful answer from Community Team member Celestrata:

The skin is indeed an early access costume, and not an exclusive costume. The only exclusive costumes are the Renaissance Gaslight Batman and the Arkham White Batman costumes that are available in our founders packs.

So if you've got your eye on Greek Goddess Wonder Woman, the name of the game . . . is patience. I know—it's tough for me too. But while you're waiting, you can post in the comments section below or follow JL∞ on Twitter @JL_Infinite! That should waste a little bit of time, right?

[justiceleagueinfinite]

Dev Post Digest: NDA Nuances, Server Location

Celestrata and Cordovan on NDA Dos and Dont's In light of last week's Infinite Crisis coverage at E3, which was streamed by the official Infinite Crisis Twitch channel, there has been a new round of questions about the NDA—namely, when the rest of us can begin streaming. Turbine Community Team member Cordovan made it clear that the E3 showcase last week does not change the NDA's position on streaming:

Just to reiterate: No, the NDA currently prohibits live streaming of our Closed Beta.

Community Team member Celestrata elaborated, responding to a specific question about the duration of the NDA:

We have not announced when the NDA will be dropping.

In another post, Celestrata addressed a more nuanced hypothetical regarding gameplay videos. Previously, the devs have acknowledged that it is okay to create gameplay videos of the closed beta, so long as those videos are for personal use. But what about after the NDA is lifted? Celestrata answered that exact question:

When the NDA is lifted, you may post gameplays, yes. However, you may not post anything that was from the period of time covered by the NDA. Why? Well, the game is going to be changing as we move forward in beta and fix things. It would be silly to post gameplay from the beginning of beta, with all of the bugs, instead of showing what the game looks like when the NDA drops. So, long story short, you may not post anything from the game during the time period of the NDA. After the NDA drops, you're welcome to stream and post gameplay from that point forward.

Celestrata on Server Locations The question is simple: Where are the Infinite Crisis servers located? Right next to Turbine's headquarters, of course! Celestrata revealed the details:

Boston, Massachusetts, United States.

As soon as the devs post more Infinite Crisis information, you can rest assured that JL∞ will be there to bring it to you. In the meantime, share your thoughts in the comment section below, and be sure to follow @JL_Infinite on Twitter.

[justiceleagueinfinite]

Dev Post Digest: Maps, Mechanics, and Champion Design

Coming to a Batman near you? Read Dev Post Digest to find out!

Celestrata on Map Types and Laning Turbine Community Team member Celestrata responded to some confusion regarding the numerous references to "laning" in the Champion Profile videos. In MOBAs, laning describes the initial phase of a traditional tri-lane match, during which players focus on killing drones to gain credits and experience rather than attacking opposing champions or securing objectives. Laning occurs less frequently in capture-point matches, which tend to be more fluid and improvised.

Celestrata explained the laning references by confirming, as had been previously reported by JL∞ and other outlets, that Infinite Crisis will indeed have three game modes:

[T]here will be 3 maps. Right now, all of our footage is shot on our control point map. However, that will not always be the case. So, while the control point map may not have a laning phase per se, the other maps could... just sayin'.

ZombieColumbus on Last-Hitting and Credit Collection One of the more active threads on the forum in the past week centers around last-hitting and credit collection in IC. The thread began with a criticism of the mechanic from a self-described high-level League of Legends player, who argued that a de-emphasis on last-hitting was "a bad idea" and too much of a deviation from other MOBAs. After some back-and-forth in the thread, Character Designer ZombieColumbus stepped in to clarify the issue:

We are in the continuing beta process of making gameplay adjustments. Our model for credit sharing and distribution will change over time.

When I first played DotA, the last hit mechanic was rather difficult to understand, and that's before I even realized denies existed! Why does only the last hit on a creep matter? By contrast, seeing collectible coins drop on the ground is very clear. See coin, get coin, focus on making enemy creeps die in safe places, zone opponent away from his coins. These gameplay optimizations all flow cleanly and intuitively.

MOBAs have a cloud of features that make them unique. Each game that calls itself a MOBA will take some set of these features as canon, and others they will iterate on. We are currently iterating on credit collection.

As a long time MOBA player, currency dropping on the ground was odd at first, but it quickly became integrated into how I played and thought.

The be fully explicit, we are working on a IC version of last hitting and what it means.

And lastly, Is last hitting the only design model that allows players to express farming mastery in the laning phase? We don't think so. We WANT players to be able to express skill in the laning phase, but we are not convinced that there is one and only one way to do this.

It will be interesting to see what last-hitting looks like when the closed beta opens up next week.

Keth and Floon on Champion Design In response to a specific request for future champions representing Earth-2 (Golden Age) and Earth-3 (Crime Syndicate of America), Lead Content Designer Keth offered some insight on the thought process behind choosing champions for Infinite Crisis:

I've always enjoyed both the Crime Syndicate when it has appeared in the comics and the current Earth 2 run. . . .However, I would say that while those are awesome characters, they may not make awesome playable characters. To explain what I mean I'll draw an analogy to the old "Mirror, Mirror" Star Trek episode. I love that episode, but if I were to make a video game out of it, how would Spock's skills differ from Evil Spock's? I could probably come up with some, but visually, what is the difference between the two? Well, um, one has a goatee. We face a similar conundrum with some of the characters in the Earth-2 and Earth-3 universes. How would Owlman and Batman be different? Well, obviously Owlman is going to be much more vicious in his fighting and his gadgets will be more cruel, but overall, they would both be gadget deploying humanoids wearing capes. You don't get quite the exaggeration and variety you get with Batman compared to Gaslight Batman. Having said that, I could totally see us doing Earth-2 & Earth-3 characters in the future, but for the time being, we are focusing on get a variety of different character-types in the game, both in terms of visual style and play style.

I for one would be very surprised if we didn't eventually see champions like Power Girl, Huntress, Doctor Fate, and Mister Terrific in Infinite Crisis.

Keth went on to explain the criteria for new champions, adding that there are no plans to introduce thematically similar characters as skins:

I definitely agree that we could make the skill set of an Earth 2 or Earth 3 variant different from their Prime version. However, as I mentioned earlier, right now we don't feel the differences are significant enough to justify making that character over a more wildly divergent character. However, once we have our character roster more established, that could change! One other point I wanted to share regarding costumes (what we are calling "skins"). No matter what costume the character is wearing, they are always going to be the same person. . . . So in the above case, we wouldn't release an Owlman costume for Batman, because, well Owlman is a different person. There are a few reasons why that is the case, but the main one is that it does a disservice to the character. If we ever did Owlman, he should be his own unique character, not something tacked onto Batman.

Finally, Keth noted that if Earth-2 was to be represented in Infinite Crisis, it would most likely be the version featured in the current "New 52" continuity:

Although we are definitely not going to be a direct translation of the new 52, I'm trying to have us reflect the new 52 version of the DC universe, since that is the current continuity. However, that isn't always possible. If the new 52 version of a character varies wildly from the pre-new 52 version, and that previous version was made popular in other media, such as in animated features or movies, we'll likely do that version of the character.

In a separate thread discussing the new Wonder Woman splash art, Art Director Floon listed the design goals for each new champion:

We've set ourselves the objective, within our designs, of them all being: 1. Instantly recognizable as to who they are a variant of. 2. Instantly recognizable as to which universe they come from. 3. Instantly recognizable as to what they're likely going to do to you. 4. Be wildly different from the base character and the other variants. Those four areas of the Venn diagram overlap in a pretty small intersection. But we have some concept artists who are up to the task.

Keth on Bunny Suit Batman Finally, in what is surely the most devastating news this week, Keth crushed our dreams by revealing that a Bunny Suit Batman skin will not be making an appearance in Infinite Crisis:

[I]f we released a Bunny Suit Batman costume (which we totally aren't doing), it would be Bruce Wayne in a Bunny Suit Costume.

. . .

Hmm, I can just see the headlines on the sites now. "Bunny Suit Batman costume confirmed!"

If only, Keth. If only.

As we continue to hear from the Infinite Crisis developers, JL∞ will have more Dev Post Digests bringing their thoughts to you. In the meantime, let me know what you think about this new feature in the comments section below, and follow @JL_Infinite on Twitter to stay connected to all things Infinite Crisis.