Critters and the upcoming Arctic Weapon Effect

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Wittgenstein wrote:

STOP LETTING ME PLAY YOUR GAME FOR FREE GGG! I mean seriously, wtf, you release this game for free and let me play it and then offer me optional cosmetic items in order to support you and I'm... what.. supposed to BUY things?! YOU HAVEN'T FIXED THE ISSUE I THINK IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE YET!!!

To show you my anger I will continue to play your awesome game for free and not buy anything but I will hijack every patch announcement so that I can tell you how YOU HAVEN'T FIXED THE ISSUE MOST IMPORTANT TO ME YET! And I know I know.. you need money to keep afloat and fix these issues that are quite complex and that you've been making steady improvements on for the past 3 years but WHATEVER MAN - I'm so over it!

OH AND WHEN YOU do fix an issue I will be SURE TO TELL YOU HOW YOU DID IT WRONG!

oh wow! this was a lot! and its not my cup of tea. over the years, i did a lot of third party projects. some projects, that had forum, too... i learned, no matter how much we did, it was not enough for some of the users. so like this gentleman here.

sir wittgenstein, i think the ggg team is about to know most of the problems with the game. normally there is a endless list of tasks. its pinned on the wall, or metal board, like post its, so that everyone can steal the task belonging to his job.
as i read, there are 20-25 men, normally everyone knows what to do, but sometimes there are so many taskes to do.. (desync, bugfixing, oh new twitch plugin, etc) that this takes more time than it should).

i know this kind of work myself, and i think, every indi company will have the similar problems. i think, they will do what they can, to solve the top 10 probs, which are the hottest bugs should be. therefor it would be cool to be patient.

for me, yes there is desync (too much player, less server power?), and i think they can fix it, i play the game since 2-3 month now. first i bought stash, then after this sword fx here, gem fx there... and now its one of my favor sparetime hobbys to be. i do not know the problems the last years, but i feel wow after every update, and the numbers of transactions is just awesome!

i think here in forum should be a technical "top 10" with the 10 most annoying problems through the game. i hope such a threat is still there. if not, there should be.
i hope ggg has the financial power to be there the next years, to update the game every more, and i hope all the consumers will help them.

the financial concept is new, and an experiment, too. if this works, this would be such a big thing through the other big companies, that would be so nice... 20 - 25 nerds eat blizzard, or similar :) i hope they will, with help and patient of real fansbase.

:)

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PS. Desync has been getting consistently worse over time, not better.

^ This.

I was beginning to wonder if I was the only one that noticed this. When I first started playing this game I almost never saw any desynch. Now it is nearly constant. Rhoas, rock guys, flicker strikers, or ANY large pack causes massive desynch. It really got bad for me around 0.11.0. I really love this game and I seriously doubt that I am gonna quit playing anytime soon, but I do hope something can be done to improve this because it's kind of a mess right now.

That being said, love the new weapon effect.

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leepoeaccount wrote:

I don't like the Arctic Weapon effect at all.

I and many others paid for the open beta supporter pack to have a glowing weapon that are far better looking than the cheaper effects and made it clear to players that you were a supporter.

This new effect has far to much glowing and is not fair on those of us whom paid for the supporter packs. This effect needs it glow effect reduced be to compared with the other "cheaper" effects.

Sure the supporter packs are to show your support for the development of the game, but a superior glowing weapon effect is part of the supporter package as a thank you for supporting and should always remain superior looking compared to regular micro transaction effects.

Us supporters should look better than everyone else as we paid for the privilege.

Lol wow.... just.. wow. Little too high and mighty there buddy. I think you're under the impression that the random people you encounter in-game ACTUALLY care about you, or your special effects. They don't, fyi.

This isn't a complaint but more of a "wish."

I hope the next patch says something along the lines of this:

"In the 0.xx.xx patch, we have fixed tons of graphical issues(especially with ATI cards) that cause your laptop to sound like a helicopter, overheat and shut off. You no longer have to play at 4 resolution modes lower, with texture quality at 3+, or need to lower everything else just to keep your computer from being fried."

Any attempt at those issues right there ^, and I bet +75% of the community would rejoice and bring back TONS of players.

Please do not quote a reply to this with the usual "buy a new computer" crap, my laptop is an Asus, bought in early 2011, with a 5145 HD card. Plays Diablo 3/skyrim/wow/LeagueOfLegends in all maxed settings at 50-60+ fps. Where as I can't for the life of me figure out why PoE wants to destroy my laptop.

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Alysma wrote:

An arctic effect would be an instant must-have for my cold damage shadow but I would like it a lot better if it had blue hues in it and some ice/snow particles. I.e. if it wouldn't be so rounded and swirly but with spiky things and/or snowflakes. It would also better match the Ice Crown. :-) Right now my association would not be "cold" but "bridal". ;-)

I tried snow flakes and stuff but you couldn't see them from far away. They just looked like weird buzzing blobs. So I went with a windy blizzard look. I could have giant snow flakes but then ited be Christmasy :P . So Would work better as a seasonal effect rather than a cold effect. I wish I could emit 3d ice crystals but currently don't have the tech to emit 3d mesh's yet. Im sure we could do extra variations of ice weapon effects in the future if more ask for a specific thing.

I personally thought it felt pretty "arctic" though. When I imagine what arctic would be. I think of fast blowing insta kill critting freezing winds :P.

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Russell wrote:

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start balancing uniques and skill/support gems instead of adding microtransaction stuff...

Im not very good at game design sadly : ( . So im stuck making skill effects, environment effects and microtransactions.

And doing a great job at it IMO. This game looks SO much better than it did a year ago. I don't always agree with PoE's art direction (see massive aura-nerf rant for more) but there's no denying how much Russell and the other artists have done to make Wraeclast a more beautiful place....in a dark, gritty way, of course. :-).

Nice work!

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Russell wrote:

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Alysma wrote:

An arctic effect would be an instant must-have for my cold damage shadow but I would like it a lot better if it had blue hues in it and some ice/snow particles. I.e. if it wouldn't be so rounded and swirly but with spiky things and/or snowflakes. It would also better match the Ice Crown. :-) Right now my association would not be "cold" but "bridal". ;-)

I tried snow flakes and stuff but you couldn't see them from far away. They just looked like weird buzzing blobs. So I went with a windy blizzard look. I could have giant snow flakes but then ited be Christmasy :P . So Would work better as a seasonal effect rather than a cold effect. I wish I could emit 3d ice crystals but currently don't have the tech to emit 3d mesh's yet. Im sure we could do extra variations of ice weapon effects in the future if more ask for a specific thing.

I personally thought it felt pretty "arctic" though. When I imagine what arctic would be. I think of fast blowing insta kill critting freezing winds :P.

It's a good look, just too glowy for my taste. I like the way the "smoke" comes off the Ivory effect...just like a cold metal object exposed to warmer air; IMO that's a very nice rendition of a cold effect...and it's what I use. If you could put (and we know you can) an orange ember-like glow (think the balrog in FOTR) with a bit of black "smoke" into the ebony effect I think you'd have a pretty decent (and unpretentious) representation of "fire". Just saying.

Thanks again for all your great work Russell.

are the critters squishy like in d2? ;}

"haha, if you dislike the rctic fx, you must not buy it :) if you buy it you agree with style of the designer... if you want another fx, make your bachelor of arts, lOOk for a company, and make game, too..."

this, i thought as i read some of the posts... but at all for me, its a journey what the designer did with THERE project. i like the arktic fx as it is, please do not fix, or delete it because of neg feed... its cool at it is :)