Difference between revisions of "User talk:Joshex"

Revision as of 03:03, 17 March 2018

Visitor Comments and Talk

This is where you can leave a note if you don't want to post under anything below.Joshex (talk) 18:44, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Template:HelpMe (don't know if this should go on another page, so I put it here to be safe) found some interesting information CoX related after messing around with game dev. Remember the emotes in CoX used to sync after a bit? it's because the player rigs were spawned objects, it makes all the difference in a GE(game engine), because spawned objects have the same virtual identity (the actual object name is the same, they are merely instanced) so when an emote is started it starts either a timer or uses the system's timer to calculate frame number, because they are all different iterations of the same object after one sequence they should all sync up because the GE checks their name to determine frame number whenever one of them reaches the end of the anim, same name = same frame number (unless prohibited where one object resets its timer). It works in any game software. Joshex (talk) 03:03, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

I realize you may be busy BlondeShell, and I am sorry to trouble you. But where is the best talk page place on the wiki to discuss news mentioning City Of Heroes? can we have a "Media Mentions" page? thank you again and sorry about leaving things for you to clean up.. I'm really just trying to help in any way I can. for example should it go on https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/News ? Joshex (talk) 07:54, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

The purpose of the News page was to record news announcements that were made on the official forums. The only other page that recorded news-like announcements is Developer Diaries, but that was for official interviews and Q&As that were given by the game staff to other publications and websites. The discussion you want to have about a possible rules change by the US Copyright Office has no place on Paragon Wiki until it has a real and concrete effect on City of Heroes. Until that time, it needs to stay on the forums or your personal talk page. — talk / contribs 04:30, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

understood, here's to hoping eh? if the guys on the forums come up with a hail mary effort on these grounds let me know what they decide to do (if you would be so kind). From my searches we would have to submit any "legal comments" via the "Federal Registrar's Notice" whatever that means. But I think masks or letters should be sent to the same place for them to really be considered by the copyright office. Joshex (talk) 07:58, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Help you, I asked what that meant, and got this:

The link to the Federal Register Notice regarding “Exemptions to Permit Circumvention of Access Controls on Copyrighted Works Notice of Public Hearing” contained in Vol. 83 No. 23 on page 4484 dated February 2, 2018 is listed below: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2018-02-02/pdf/2018-02086.pdf . This apparently shows how to make official comments on the case. Joshex (talk) 15:49, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Welcome!

@Manga " 1) You'd have to write a separate game server application that runs on the local machine, but only supports one player connection, and can fool the stock CoH client into connecting to it and accepting commands. It would have to contain duplicates of a lot of the content from the CoH client so it knows what the client knows, in order to command the game so it behaves like it should."

And even in that case it would actually be more simple to just keep it massively multiplayer as the frame work is still there. Even if it only runs the client looped into the localhost, the server would still in fact be listening to given ports, so even in that case other users could auth to your server and join the fray. Speaking of simplicity of coding, is it simpler to code for 1 player? no. Even if coding for only one player there would still be the possibility of allied targets such as pets, heroes etc that would also need the same User Instancing system as the actual full server, and if you have that then it'll work for other players too. EVEN if you never use pets or support characters, If you ever have more than one enemy effecting a player at a time (which even happens on the lowest difficulty settings) there is a chance that two actions will try to be cast on the same player object on the same frame, if that happens with no user instancing; one enemy's attack will be cast and make no effect(it will be forgotten). I hardly call that 'playing'..

By the way #1 is probably the option with the least amount of work, I've been thinking of doing such myself but I'd rather work with someone else on their project than start yet another project for myself. If I did it it'd be a Sunday thing, as in every Sunday for the foreseeable future and only because I wouldn't call it work but rather leisure. Joshex (talk) 18:16, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Sunday project officially started (though to a much smaller and lesser extent) after lots of Q&A with Codewalker, he really does know /everything/ about the client software and I probably couldn't have even started coding anything to work with it without his help. Well here's to hoping it actually becomes a finished project one of these Sundays! not going to say anything more or hint as to what it is because unlike Codewalker I'm not very accomplished and may not finish it, but we'll see.Joshex (talk) 02:35, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

better clarify, the Sunday project I started is not and was never a fully functional CoH anything. It will aim to provide minimal non-game-play content to Paragon Chat. Unless someone else beats me to it. I admit it's hard to do things alone even with clear information from pro like CW, unless you are CW. Joshex (talk) 14:05, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

@Surelle "...sources inside the company have publicly stated that City of Heroes cost $4M annually to run/support and brought in $12M annually, at a net profit of $8M annually. Paragon was using that profit on R&D for a second game."

... so, NCSoft was legitimately seeing no income or close to it from CoX... that explains everything. It explains why they shut it down (they weren't seeing any profits and were basically running the game at cost), it explains why they don't care about the player base (yeah we were paying customers but they never saw any of it, kinda like were weren't even their customers), and explains why they would charge alot for it (to make some basic decent profit from it after all these years). In no way am I on their side on the last one, and I wish they'd just let go of it already but.. now I can see the causes and effects. obviously they'd shut down a sequel or second game if the first game wasn't making any profit, it's a lack of faith and I might say a bad decision by the paragon team, you just don't go making a second game when it would mean turning up a nil profit to your boss every quarter. If your game isn't making enough to support a second development project AND supply decent profits to the parent company, then your goal is to work with what you've already got to make it more interesting, and find every way you can to prolong the contingencies in the game to keep the story and content going. no offense to other fans but I always saw the incarnate system as an end-contingency announcement, it broke the level-based system and supplied a finite set of options for progress.. after you break the progression system once, it's unfeasible to break it again. in my opinon if CoX comes back it should lose the incarnate system and regain statesman. Also it dawns on me that if NCSoft is just completely unwilling to sell, the next best option is to fix everything they saw as problems with CoX by remaking it with 1:(better graphics, access from touch screen devices etc. (while keeping a low poly/original mode for systems that need it)), 2: start the game's story over again (CoX reboot), 3: do ethnographic research to determine if people would like the game and how much they would pay each month, then pitch that to NCSoft. NCSoft may not be willing to sell or run the original, but they are obviously willing to make money from the IP, a CoX reboot could do just that. preceding comment by me Joshex (talk) 01:32, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

@Ohioknight "But to build a thing like that you'd have to have already developed and demonstrated a technology that allowed distributed clients to do something like use a power to throw a frisbee to another player or something -- crazy talk."

not that crazy at all, it's all communication logic (User Instancing). Honestly, if I didn't need money so badly I'd have the time and ability to do it myself, I'm willing to help Codewalker or Arcana with such a project, though I don't think they need it. There's other models too that could be even more difficult to shut-down. If Codewalker or Arcana replies to this I'll tell them about the pure evil of the Dynamic Engine Method. Joshex (talk) 04:22, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Gosh.. I can see why things get held up dealing with companies, playing the middleman is hard and then at the end of it all you find out that everyone wants to do business with each other but no one wants to take the initiative to contact the other one. As the middle man all you can do is nudge and hear a "maybe after the next release". Sure wish I could contact Codewalker for some programming advice, maybe with his help or tutoring we/I could do it without the whole company cooperation system (both companies have said, "sure, you can do it yourself" so it's legal at least). This has nothing to do with CoX mind you it has to do with porting software from source to another OS. No one seems to want to do the work. I would gladly do it if I knew how to edit source, sadly my C is more than rusty.Joshex (talk) 05:16, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

From this experience I can only imagine what the CoX negotiators must be going through, maybe something like; The license to the old cryptic engine which was used to run and make changes to the game image is expired and Cryptic has decided the engine is outdated and discontinued support for it so they are not renewing licenses. Then what? one option; make a new engine to run and modify the game image. With the wait we are seeing I wouldn't doubt it being something that seemingly hopeless. If that were the case it is possible, but it'd take a long while.Joshex (talk) 05:16, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

[1] #Don't be a Peeping Peter! #you never know what you might discover. "it could shake your whole marvel universe"

Spiderman: "you try telling the hulk to take one step forwards while he's got that beast out!" Joshex (talk) 16:36, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

A trip to china? $1700. The look on spiderman's face when he saw the hulk's beast? Priceless. Joshex (talk) 17:01, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Talk about taking an angry P!55 Joshex (talk) 05:16, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

There is a collection of Userboxes you can easily add there. Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date.

Also, make sure you take a look at the Help page. There are a lot of preloaded images, missions, and contact info templates, and what you want to add might already be there.

Again, welcome! -- ~ AGGE talk/cons 05:55, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Newest Info

Joshex (talk) 01:34, 27 February 2017 (UTC) I am now an official dual citizen, US/UK. Joshex (talk) 22:07, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Job hunting. I have a part-time job but it's not in my major and honestly I'm with Agge on this one; I'm starting to hate myself for teaching English as a foreign language. I want to make games, Edit: so that's what I'm doing.. Joshex (talk) 21:59, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Only the newest update will be available here old ones will be erased, replies are welcomed and may not be purged.

22nd of February seem so long ago. I'm in the UK now living it up in Scotland, it looks like I might be going to China in December.. I kinda want to go again, but as a tourist not working in schools.. taking a break on all game projects(sorta, everything that's being done is valid work for all game titles.) to work on a short and very simple title that will be out for christmas just for some friends. that game will not be posted here and will be more of a joke than anything, I wouldn't consider it a game either it'll be more of a walk around quest with trivia..Joshex (talk) 16:56, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

LOL so much for that. IRL (real life) interjected itself and forced me into a work schedule from October to late December, there was no way to make up for that much lost time. That game will be finished for them next year. Joshex (talk) 04:29, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

01/01/2018 Over the last few months I decided to test out buffered shadows in the game engine, the result is unless you are working in a very small room real-time shadows are far too pixelated and memory consuming. I have a friend writing a new GL shader to fix the problem with a simple lamp object instead of a spot lamp. the GL shader is of my design and when finished will support real time reflections, IOR and transparency, and path traced shadows with ambient lighting.

Other things, I was afraid of returning to China because I died there last time from a fever of 112 F and a lung infection, the construction is everywhere, the dust is dirty, the cleanliness practices are for an older simpler time when the air was clean, there is a complete disregard for no smoking signs and smoking laws the signs might as well be a decoration. I don't know what got me this time but the fever I got didn't kill me again at least. How lovely that it would strike me again less than 1 month in. I have been rescued from IRL and now control my own work schedule (for the most part). Lots of work should get done, especially once I shake this nose and throat infection. Joshex (talk) 04:29, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Project Bane

is still in the workings, it's more of a spiritual successor to CoH than it was before, however it has nothing to do with the CoX universe and functions off a significantly different statistical system. The game has a name but as with most things I have yet to file for intellectual properties.

The current dev focus is the powersets and chat system.

The game is not in a release state, it is again in pieces and due for a complete rebuild based around the chat system as a core rather than a utility.

Amendment of the Amendment: My current goal before moving forwards is to create an option for users to be able to use CoX mimicking powersets for nostalgia's sake, though I can already say that they wont be as effective as they were in CoX, still I'd like to make it an available option. I really don't want to have to nerf the system later so I'm taking care to make it balanced from the start, that means for everything there's a balance and a reason, everything has things it equals or conflicts with and thus all numbers are equal though different. Joshex (talk) 19:02, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Project Bane Version in production:

V0.0 - Character Creator Base; chose your alignment, set your base stats, chose your archetype, chose your power set, and make power choices, choose your origin(s), Save to computer.

1: swap geometry (requires the model to be split into editable areas, and needs testing to see if the parts will still be responsive to shape keys weight painting and animation after they are spawned) TESTED, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED (still going to test the other one because I hate not having a solid character mesh..) Joshex (talk) 22:28, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

2: the Video Texture module in blender python, TESTED, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! It works, works with materials, and works with UV maps, it also works when rigged/animated and works on any other mesh sharing the same UV_ and material but does not work on that mesh unless that model is loaded on the object on which the script is being run. Joshex (talk) 19:02, 20 March 2017 (UTC) cleaning

Also, nice pun Nyx! just you wait for V0.8! you'll see an MMO thing developed from 'ground' then. heheh.Joshex (talk) 17:21, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Update: what was done recently?, the authentication system for the client has a rough draft coded. That should tell you that I'm attempting to push forwards the release by skipping a lot of the character designer. However that's not to say we have no ability to design characters; Recently I have finished the male muscle base, male sleek base and made a female muscle base! However the initial release may not have any character graphics, or very limited graphics, I'm attempting to push out a general online game communication system first covering basic game interactions first, then enabling chat. technically chat can be done very easily, but the chat interface/window is kinda a bore to make especially when you only have 15 minutes or an hour here or there to make it. Joshex (talk) 14:49, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Project bane is on hold. We'll see what happens. Meantime the story is gaining more entries and definition the main city map is more of a big cloud right now or at least a bit foggy, needs more development. some of the characters now have a defined end to their stories and that has helped graft the framework for other stories in the universe to base themselves on. Joshex (talk) 04:42, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Second Game

Joshex (talk) 01:34, 27 February 2017 (UTC) There is a second game project in the workings, it is not an online game, right now its codename is actionadeventuremessaround but is not entirely unrelated to project bane, some of it's mechanics will be used in Bane, and the main character will be a character in Bane (Hero or Villain is not decided yet, but I'm leaning towards hero now). The game is an action adventure game, I've always wanted to make one, so; Why not? it aims to be a comedy of sorts (and may not be suitable for all ages), and I am vying to find out whether or not it will be possible to publish it for the Nintendo NX(switch).

The physics for all main game play elements is largely complete and the core story is finished.

there is now concept art of the main character (yay paper!). Joshex (talk) 21:59, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

There is already a game play manual and I'm sticking to it.

Addition: The tutorial zone map is now mostly planned. still lots to go on map planning hopefully I get time. Joshex (talk) 00:54, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

update on second game, Talks failed to make an official port of blender player for nintendo systems. the blender devs do not feel that their GE is ready for the mainstream yet. Joshex (talk) 04:52, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

It will be /JUST/ a Computer title. This game has a patreon page but I want to show graphics before I really get any donors and I am unable to sign in to patreon while in china due to google captcha not loading. I have half decided that this 'second game' should actually come out first before Project Bane.. I'll probably work on them simultaneously though so one will follow the other rather speedily. Joshex (talk) 04:52, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Trademark rights will be pursued once more work is done and I am sure I can get it out in 2.5 years or less. Once it's all registered the Actual title of this game will have it's own section on this page. Joshex (talk) 04:52, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

redundant section removed. Joshex (talk) 04:52, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Science Stuff

@Arcana "I don't actually know if this is him, but:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/121710536/a-new-mathem..." - truncated link because I don't want to advertise them.

no it is not me, the math I have done reevaluates geometrical constants by reverse-generating them. One of such constants has been found to be a non-constant. I'm actually ready to release what I have, but I want to go one step further and look into the bisection of B^2,the trisection of B^3 and the Decasection of B^10 it may supply something terribly useful.. or not.. I have been too preoccupied with my games and job to test it. again the above link you gave is not me, I would never ask for money for this kind of finding. Joshex (talk) 14:55, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

I would like to thank Arcana for linking me to a program a while back before I was banned from the forum. the program was a delimited calculator which does not truncate decimal results. I admit I am just getting to using it today and that it solves a lot of headaches I was getting in my math it's the difference between 9.999999999999999999999998 and 10. very helpful and thank you again for pointing me in the right direction. I will be placing this in the references of the scientific paper I am currently writing (and with this tool I am now able to finish the main point of the document, from where I have a few more sections to go to describe other actions). @.@ = me the past few days "why wont it equal 10?! my formulas should be correct!". I am sorry to have to be so cryptic about this but I don't want to give anything away till it's finished. Joshex (talk) 17:40, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Success achieved,

Now I just need to find the right scientific journal to publish it in. I was going to publish it through the university I attended for my masters, however they directed me to talk to my professor (or find a professor in that field), and the professors told me there is no such thing as publishing through the Uni; all publications of papers are published through independent publishers, including the University of Edinburgh Press which itself is not a part of the university but an independent publisher and according to professors very few people from the Uni actually publish there for some reason they don't know. I'm open to suggestions for a publisher, I suppose Arcana might have some ideas but I have no way to contact her, not even sure she'd help me given how infamous I am, still I would be obliged if someone could at least notify her of this. Joshex (talk) 16:56, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Weighing in on Lexmark VS Impression

Asking for someone credible's opinion on the following: I know I already said this in Paragon chat and that it's been logged for review, but I thought I'd talk about it here as well seeing as it is possibly important. The supreme court of the USA has ruled that under consumer laws, the buyer has a right to modify, distribute and re-sell what they purchased. Why is this on Paragon Chat's page? (I said a while ago to keep those installation CDs and DVDs and such! granted it was just wishing and hoping that they'd be useful in some sort of negotiation) But now we have proof we bought at least a physical installer disk for the client software of the game. This means (at least in how I interpret it) that we can modify and use the client under the supreme court ruling (which is exactly what paragon chat is, a modification and partial re-usage of the client).

This means Paragon Chat is legal, it's no longer gray area! we no longer have to worry about NCSoft taking away the client software or demanding we all uninstall it(as that would now be illegal, and to be honest it was unlikely from the start that they'd even try to take it away). I personally think that is big news. Of course I'll wait for someone more credible here-in to validate that this is indeed the effect of Lexmark VS Impression on Paragon Chat.

I'm even wary of outright saying we could charge for access to Paragon Chat, that's gray area now that we have to wait for a ruling on subscriptions for (which apparently is a topic on the Supreme court's table, slated for the future). Going forwards who knows what the court will rule. It is my hope we get some protections for user created content, like a right for indefinite continued access to user created content (hint I'm hoping for official access to our account data, SG bases, and playable AE missions). Of course this was not covered under the current ruling.

Even more wild would be a right to access all content we paid money for, that would include enhancements and booster packs (which would include some missions and some incarnate trials). However this has not happened at this time to my knowledge.

on the outside, in my opinion I'd say it's improbable (but I'd like to be wrong) that the court would rule that subscriptions entitle buyers to continued access to the product as long as they wish to subscribe and that if the company ceases ability to run the product that they find someone else who can. of course that would solve all our problems, but as I said that's highly unlikely (prove me wrong, please prove me wrong!)Joshex (talk) 02:14, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

First, this is probably not the right place to have this discussion Joshex. Second, the supreme court's ruling is about hardware, not software, it might extend to software as well, but the ruling was directly about the hardware. The software on those discs are also clients that access the servers, at no point did we, the userbase, purchase a server or server software from the distributor. --Sleepykitty (talk) 17:56, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

where would be a good place for this discussion? I was aware it was about hardware which I was referencing with the disks, they are hardware, modifying the disks would constitute modifying their data, of course I could be wrong, but that was my thinking and why I tied it to PC. It may be true that we never bought the server, but we bought a disk with the client's installer, so it was my thinking that everything in that disk (upto heroes and villains special DVD edition?) was able to be modified and distributed minus what was not in it (the server code). Of course I can see how we would need a definite answer before assuming such things. I have asked a game lawyer about how this ruling relates to game software on disks and *checks* he has not gotten back to me yet, but most assuredly will, no doubt it's not an easy answer to get as it may require a supreme court verdict which could take years. I wrote here because I am aware we have some experts in our midst who can maybe answer this as well. If it is as you say then I suppose that is that, and thankyou. Joshex (talk) 00:23, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

additional information, the lawyer had not replied because he was on vacation. he's back starting today. (sadly I have to turn off my internet today and wont have it again till the 18th some time).Joshex (talk) 12:56, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

First things firt, spacing pls! large blocks of text with no spacing are a pain to read (I went and added some for you). Second, the forums, or your talk page. This is the talk page of the notes section of paragonchat. this is definitely not the right place (to which end, this page will be moved and deleted soon-ish).

That said, you own the disc and you can modify it as you want. paint it? sure! string a wire through the center and hand it up? have at it! Shoot it in lieu of a clay pigeon... err.. well, that one depends on your local laws but... you can do it. The software on said physical object is more iffy. The ruling was on physical hard ware, and your right to mod and buy replacement components solely for said physical hardware. The ruling is to new to have anyone try and challenge it yet (and have gotten anywhere) for software.

And for the final bit, we're currently running a version of the software on those discs (last version is GR btw, not H&V). What we're missing is the server code, that code is very very important and contains much of the grunt work for NPC behavior and battle #s. We don't have a legal version of it, and illegal versions are very hard to find, otherwise it would be all over the internet.

What I'm getting at here, is that this is essentially a non-discussion topic, the law did not make personal mmos legal without the consent of the distributor. If such a ruling does happen, I'm sure we'll hear about it, the internet would go crazy(er). But it didn't. And so, we can only just move on and hope for the best. --Sleepykitty (talk) 14:34, 17 June 2017 (UTC)