Agonus
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Posts
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Joined
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Lack of any consistent form of advertising. That I can think of off the top of my head, they released blurbs for major releases like CoV, and GR had ads in Marvel and DC comics for a week or two. Freedom might of had something, but I can't even remember at this point. But there wasn't much of anything else in between those to let people know the game was still there.
The other thing would be two of those major releases. Mission Architect was touted as this awesome tool that would allow players to create endless content. It was released, and then the exploits started popping up. And they Dev response indicated that they draaaaaaaaaassssstttically underestimated the "farmer" mindset. So MA got nerfed. Then another exploit popped up. Then MA got nerfed again. Lather, rinse, and repeat until the Fire Farms apparently created such specialized farming characters that Devs didn't care anymore. So what happened to the tool that would allow for endless content? The rewards system was reworked to the point that the MA buildings became ghost towns. Sure hardcore story oriented gamers still made some great stuff, but on the whole, MA ended up being ignored by the bulk of the playerbase.
And then there's GR. I still think it's some of the best writing and story-mechanics I've ever seen in a video game. But the problem with Praetoria proper is...was...whatever, that it's basically a glorified tutorial. It wasn't designed to rush through, and while it made leveling 1-20 enjoyable solo, veeeeeery few players want to do that in a MMO. -
I'll give NCSoft credit for what they did to fund the game. But they're losing any good will I have for them fast.
Their actions last week, or, hell, last Friday for all we know, were a MAJOR **** stunt. To go from being in the Beta for the next Issue and alluding to plans up to what, I30something, to the completely out of the blue Paragon Studios getting completely axed and the game being closed down in 3 months?! They deserve any ire they get for that, in my humble opinion.
For me, it's down to NCSoft being willing to sell the CoH license. That will either be the final nail in the coffin or their last bit of any redemption in my view. -
Quote:Superhero comics at least generally don't sell all that well outside of North America. It's no surprise to me that an old MMO with it's own superhero mythos isn't really all that popular, in, say, Asian markets, even considering how popular the recent superhero movies have been.Originally Posted by Father Xmas
sigh
Okay, I think we can all agree that the vast majority of players in this game are from the North American (aka Western Hemisphere) and Europe. The Q2 earnings from these two regions is 6482 million KW or 5% of NCSoft's earnings excluding royalty income. CoH earnings was 2855 million KW. If nearly all of CoH income comes from the NA and EU regions then CoH represents 44% of the income from these regions.
Yes the game is a small fish when compared to their hugely successful games in Asia (Korea, Japan and Taiwan represent 95% of their income base) but we are a big chunk in our neck of the woods. Now perhaps NCSoft is looking at withdrawing development support from the NA and EU regions now that GW2 is done since all the one time sales of that game will bolster the income from NA and EU regions for sure in Q4.
Their major MMOs from Asia obviously aren't hitting it off here that well. Maybe they decided they simply don't grok us and write the region off, just cash in on the GW2 sales for the short term, maybe finance an expansion pack or two if sales of the core game continues strong, but if I worked for ArenaNet, I'll be worry that their owners won't be interested in another costly multiyear development cycle for a GW3.
And depending how far along Wildstar is coming along (as well as whether or not they think it'll play in Asia), they may go all Studio 38 on them as well.
Then there's the matter of CoH's mostly non-existent advertising. -
ToR? Maybe? Absolutely hated the DCUO UI.
Quote:Last I heard the WoD MMO is being made by the EVE Online people. Y'know, Speadsheets in Space? I've heard absolutely dreadful things about how it's going to be so PVP centric and based on buying-your-way-into-power-with-real-moneez gameplay. As it stands, wouldn't touch that game if they paid me.Originally Posted by Tater Todd
*Looks at your avatar*
So far World of Darkness is still going through with working on their new upcoming MMO so that will be my new MMORPG...shame it's not due until 2013 or 2014 : /
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I'm still stunned from just finding out about this like 30 minutes ago. Not one much for final words myself, so I'll get the important part out.
Thank you for everything. I had a great time. -
Quote:I see that you agree on some level, but the problem with Energy Melee isn't just ET's animation time. It's the lengthy animation time of two ST attacks in ET and TF, and ET's self damage aspect, and how weak an AOE Whirling Hands is. Don't play weapon sets much, but at least Shadow Maul is a cone, and other lengthy animation attacks like KM's Burst and Thunder Strike are AOEs.Originally Posted by Starsman
Been ages since I seen this argument, never held much water in my view.
You see, the overkill in teams will happen with every set out there, many sets have attacks that exceed Energy Transfer Cast time (Shadow Maul, Sky Splitter to name a couple.) Due to how teams work, chances are you will waste a lot of damage on enemies that will be dead before your animation ends, even with Energy Punch. It's just the nature of the beast, and it does not matter that much.
Solo, you have full control. There are more than just heavy hitting attacks in the set. If an enemy is about to die you have plenty of options, from lowering your DPS for an attack that will still likely do the job or simply ignore that target, focus on the next, and let that target die due to Whirling Hands or damage auras.
If the argument about overkill was valid, Titan Weapons would never had made it out of beta.
Mind you, I still agree with you at some level. Energy Melee does need something else. It's horribly weak AoE capabilities were only acceptable because of it's insane Single Target capabilities. Once that got toned down, AoE should had been addressed. It may be a good thing it didn't, though. Today it may be... more interesting to get some full revamp for the set. I would love to see some form of combo mechanic or similar cool system for the delivery of AoE. -
I had an idea to do something like this recently. I was thinking Mercs for concept and then using Time, then taking Air Sup, the Fighting pool, and keeping something like Sands of Mu around.
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I'd get Beast Mastery in a heartbeat if you could do something like go all wolves. I'll pass on the current menagerie form though.
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Wow, delayed post loading. Move along, nothing to see here.
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I thought the ending fit, considering they've been alluding to something like that since Batman Begins.
What I did NOT like was Bane's voice. The accent I didn't mind, but the overdubbing was so ridiculously bad it almost ruins any scene where Bane has to talk. I'm talking like Doom in the Fantastic Four movies bad here. Bad idea to put the microphone speaker set-up in Bane's mask, doesn't work in the movie in the slightest. Still think Bane's stand-in had a better looking mask, but I doubt that thing will ever be seen again. -
Are the temporary sales bumps from all these relaunches worth it? Are they bringing in enough new readers to balance out all the fans they're pissing off with these constant ADD-ish overhauls?
Quote:I'm curious as to the decision timeline for Uncanny X-Men.Originally Posted by GreenLantern68
Goliath - DiDio and his team said the same about DCnU...and look how that worked out for the DC Nation fanboys (of which I'm a MASSIVE fan-nerd, so I'm not picking).
No, the only thing that surprises me is that it's taken this long for Marvel to follow suit.
When they decided to relaunch Marvel's longest running title, did they have any inkling of this MarvelNu stuff? Did they know when they released the new Uncanny X-Men that it would really just be a glorified maxi-series to bridge the classic title to the post AvX stuff?
Or is the new Uncanny X-Men tanking so bad they're already panicking to relaunch it? -
Quote:For real? If that's legit, I sorta like "Mine." better.Originally Posted by Nightphall
Orange Lantern Oath
This power is mine, this is my light.
Be it in bright of day or black of night.
I lay claim to all that falls within my sight, to take what I want, THAT IS MY RIGHT!
The Indigo Tribe oath has yet to be translated, so it remains the only unknown oath. -
>.>
<.<
At 11:46 you can see my pants and boots behind the 2nd guy on Bane's right. -
Quote:These days superhero books tend to cover niche's depending on the characters. Any particular superheroes and/or teams you like?Originally Posted by Hit Streak
One thing I've never been able to get into growing up has been comic books. Not because I don't think superheroes are awesome. More because I fell in love with baseball and have always collected baseball cards.
But, being surrounded by this awesome community and the culture here at Paragon, I can't help but be curious enough to start reading. So, I come to you, City of Heroes community. Tell me what the best way to get into them would be. Where do I start?
I'm sure there's some subculture stuff out there that can bring heated conversations, so please don't let it fall to that.
But one thing to keep in mind is that there are comics that cater to just about every genre, not just superheroes.
Like horror? Try Walking Dead from Image or the new Hellraiser series from BOOM! Studios.
Sci-fi? Anything from Rebellion/200AD.
Absurdist black magic zombie humor? Go for The Goon from Dark Horse.
A lot of properties also have ongoing adaptions, like Star Wars and the Buffyverse. And just to name a few, but the Transformers, Star Trek, Godzilla, Dr Who, Ghostbusters, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have also had a lot of comics, or new serieses'ses that have come out within the last few months or few years. -
Quote:This, pretty much.Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
Traditionally, Marvel has taken tighter control on their properties when they're adapted to TV or film. They make deals with various studios to make movies and shows about their characters and subsequently they have someone(s) in there from Marvel watching their interests, making sure things are true to their characters, etc.
Is it perfect? No, because all we've seen, they've had some stinkers.
DC Comics is owned by Warner Bros. So who makes *all* the DC Comics films? Warner Bros studios.
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And since Warner Film and DC are both owned by the same company, DC has less pull since they're just another division. They can't shut it down if they're not getting the best guys at the studio to work on the film. They don't have contracts in place that say "If DC Comics doesn't like how the script and movie is going, they can pull the plug" like Marvel does.
So, in summary, why do Marvel movies tend to do better:
-Marvel has more control than DC does.
-Marvel movies are made by various different studios(for good or ill). DC movies are all made by Warner Bros.
-Competition among studios for Marvel rights makes everyone try even harder.
Of course, all this changed when Disney bought Marvel. Now they're in a similar position as DC is with Warner. How this affects the future of Marvel movies remains to be seen. So far the Avengers is the only film made completely after the takeover and I haven't heard a thing if it was scraping by at the box office or not.
Keep in mind all DC movies have been made by Warner Bros.
Marvel, on the other hand, sold the mythos rights for the X-Men to Fox and Spider-Man to Sony. I think it's safe to say both of those companies will be going out of their way to keep said rights for the forseeable future. Punisher, Daredevil/Elektra, and the Fantastic Four were all initially sold off too, but will probably end up back under Marvel sooner than later. (Ghost Rider's probably screwed as long as Nicolas Cage can generate money.) Now Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and the Avengers were all made with a massive amount of input from Marvel Comics, and I also think one could safely say having a good bit of input from Marvel's comic book creators on their movies has paid off.
DC and WB had a different approach. The suits are largely in control there, which has lead to misfires like trying to (imho) shoehorn Ryan Reynolds doing a Tony Stark impersonation as Hal Jordan in Green Lantern. But they have given control over to creative forces at seemingly random intervals, and it worked with Nolan and Batman, but it didn't with Singer's lovesick squee to the Donner's 70's Superman in Superman Returns.
But, (imho, again) beyond Batman and Superman, DC doesn't have much faith in their characters being able to support movies. Flash and Wonder Woman have had movies in developmental hell for ages. Whedon was even set to do Wonder Woman for a while, but it was pulled from him. And due to Hollywood logic, the Green Lantern movie's poor performance will be blamed on the character, not how poorly the movie was made. In theory though, this should be changing, as there was a management shakeup in DC a while back, and the marketing woman who put Harry Potter everywhere is basically in charge of using the DC library to find the next Harry Potter. So rumor is Warner's are trying to get movies out on other characters. But who knows whether or not any of them ever see the light of day before a Justice League live action movie is rushed out. (And on another side note, last I knew, anyway. But if WB doesn't get their act together and get the next Superman movie out by a particular deadline that I don't know offhand, they're in danger of starting to lose a lot, if not all, of the rights to Superman.)
But, as others have said, while Warners have been dominant in the animation wing, Marvel is finally making steps to catch up.
And I know it'll never happen, but I've been joking for a while now that it would be neat if Marvel had DC do their animation, and DC had Marvel make their live action movies. -
I have no idea of the exact issue because it was back in the mid 80's and I was like 6 or 7, but I think I can safely say it was either Incredible Hulk, Transformers, or Iron Man. Though at the time, I'm pretty sure the only reason I bothered with Iron Man was because I thought he was a Transformer too.
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Quote:And running DFB umpteen times to get to 20 doesn't get old? Or freaking 50 as I've heard some folks do? (The latter just boggles my mind, but I digress.)Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
I think that simplifies things *way* too much.
We went from two zones, five (seven if counting the PB and WS) starting contacts and, if not a lot of variety, at least a different mission *feel,* to... well, what the same problem redside had, "here's the exact same thing with the same, very few contacts, all over again."
Why do DFB? Because the tiny, tiny bit of starting content gets stale *fast* and people want to rush past it after the first run or two.
Even with Inherent Fitness, there are still a lot of players who think the game doesn't start till at LEAST 20, and they want there as fast as possible.
Praetoria has all sorts of starting variety. I think it's a fantastic introduction storyline. But it was built for solo play. You can run one of the four full arcs solo on base difficulty with minimal to no street sweeping and make it to 20. But after Freedom and DFB hit, the bulk of the playerbase pretty much proved that's not what they want. Granted the arc for Twinshot leaves a lot to be desired (but I'm one of the 8 players who actually likes Flambeaux, so I don't mind it as much) and the Graves arc was written for a -very- specific character type and is downright infuriating at points up until, imho, the end. (And I actually prefer starting as a Crusader or Loyalist for a villain to running Graves.)Quote:Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
Now, granted, that's not just a COH thing - but more starting *variety* would be nice. (Part of why I'd mentioned in the beginning "1-50 Origin arcs," as well - plus, really, starting out with someone other than Matthew "hey, look at our phase tech we barely use" habashy for once would be nice.)
But why bother with Twinshot or Graves when you can grind DFB past both of them in a fraction of the time? -
So how exactly does this work?
Is there ever a time that the panther form is fully visible? Or does toggling on the power turn you straight into an invisible(ish) panther? -
Quote:Maybe it's just me, but methinx yon advertising for the movie was a little trixy as far as who "made" it. Longtimeish Whedon cohort Drew Goddard was the director and co-writer along with Whedon.Originally Posted by Aneko
It didn't feel as short as it was, there was so much going on. Well done, Mr. Whedon.
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Quote:Sounds good. I'll probably go with an alternate magicy character though.Originally Posted by Mistress Rue
I run a Demonic-themed RPVG on Virtue - not precisely WoD, but I would consider us WoD friendly at the very least - send me a tell or in-game email to the global in my sig
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with a WoD Mage theme, preferably of the more villainous variety. Or one that allows WoD Mages. Got interested in the setting recently, and figured no harm in asking.
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This is fairly close to the dilemma I've run into recently.
I'm a big fan of playing and RPing villains. But for whatever reason, I find taking a hero and having them permanently spiral down into villainy to be more appealing, and have been on a kick to do that for a while now. So while I'm working on that, it struck me that I'd like to have a, I don't know what you'd call it, a "true" villain to play all the new Villain content with.
Now I like playing story arcs. Especially arcs that will carry you through the levels. (Praetoria is FANTASTIC for this.) Then I remembered that I hate 98% of the Graves arc (that's intended to be the bridge from Mercy into the rest of the Isles). It's written for a very particular kind of character, like a pre-set character for a single player home console RPG. The only thing I do actually like about the arc is the twist at the end, which finally takes the attention away from how Graves treats the PC.
So anyway, back to my dilemma of how to start a new villain to take advantage of all the recent villainous content. To get the most bang for my storyarc buck, I'm going to start in Praetoria and play a Loyalist or Crusader (haven't decided yet.) and then go to the Isles. Now I personally find this a little limiting in that it's outright silly to take a character with an evil name through ANY Praetoria arc due to the whole undercover aspect of the place.
"Oh, hello there. You're the new Powers Division recruit. What was your codename again?"
"Demon Deathdealer."
"...uh-huh. And you're here to aid the populace in the fight against the Resistance?"
"I sure am!"
"...right." *frantically reaches for the hidden security alarm*
But that's so much better than playing the Graves arc again, or trudging through the teens solo to make it to the 20's and any redside areas where one might actually find other players to team with. And yeah, I know I could just run DFB a couple times and be done with it, but imho, that completely defeats the purpose of what I want to do. -
Cool. I'd do it if I was anywhere near there.
A waaays back, I did see something vaguely similar at a horror convention though. They had a flat area about the size of an average movie theatre blocked off with black curtains to make a bunch of halls and rooms. Players would run through with Nerf melee weapons, and try to kill the "zombies" before the zombies got the flag football style tags off the players. -
The main thing I can think of that I do to gimp/limit my characters is that I won't mix powersets that to me, don't mesh visually. Like say any Fire powerset with anything other than stuff like Traps or other Firey powers.
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Quote:I'm not that versed on WhoLore and have thusly wondered about that. There some weird rule/canon somewhere that the Doctor -has- to be male?Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
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Hey maybe we'll get lucky and the Doctor will regen as a female, then we'll get a run of some male companions instead of easy Earth girls.
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