Bansidhe

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We've hit new highs in active concurrent in the past 24 hours. - Statesman 11/2/2005

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Taking from your own quote and also based upon this entire thread...

I didn't think those free trials counted? Technically speaking, one could suppose that the "first month free" thing could still be counted as an active account, considering the game was purchased and registered.

What I'd really like to see is how those numbers look on *Dec 18 and then **Feb 15. Those will be some very telling numbers.


Of course, when Blizzard releases the first WoW expansion, I suspect it and DDO's release will likely be the true killing blow for CoH. I could be wrong and some players will stick it out until DC or Marvel have their respective games released, simply due to lack of another comic book genre game.




*(Dec 18 being before CoH/CoV becoming possible Christmas presents.)

**(Feb 15 being after the current account boosts and those Christmas accounts have settled down.)

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*sigh*

Let's see if I can lay this thing to rest.

At I5 - and now again with ED - some claim that the game is "dying" and that thousands of players are leaving. This isn't true. We're actually gaining customers. Not hundreds of thousands, but we're gaining nevertheless.

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Is this before or after you factor the number of people who left (in droves) with ED?

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Then all of a sudden I read Armsman's post where he talks about our original launch subscription numbers - which isn't really the point. My entire response on this thread has been focused to I5 and ED reaction - so the more pertinent number to look at would be what our numbers were just previous to I5...not our numbers just after launch. Never did I make a claim that we have more subscribers now than we did last year. My point continues to be: ED and I5 haven't created a ghost town out of City of Heroes.

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Maybe not a ghost town, but certainly nowhere near the numbers pre-I5. Of course, that's including all the brand new CoH/V customers (which probably jacks the count up a fair amount).

The real question is: How many players, whose accounts were created Feb 2005* or before, are still subscribed?

*(Feb 2005 allowing for 6 month old players to be counted as "veterans".)

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Unfortunately, I pointed to SirBruce's outdated chart instead of NCSoft's numbers. Frankly, SirBruce's is the one I go to - it lists the competition, so to speak. Or at least to a degree. As SirBruce will tell you, it's really difficult to get numbers out of publishers. NCSoft posts ours.

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Why is it that NCSoft posts their games? Other than attempting to brag over Lineage II having been big, perhaps, I cannot imagine why such embarassing numbers would be so publically available.

EverQuest, which I detest, is severely outdated and only barely beats out an Etch-A-Sketch on graphics still has incredibly high subscription rates. Of course, that dev team learned to actually LISTEN to their players and not FORCE those players to play how they (the EQ devs) thought the game should be played.

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Why is WoW or Lineage doing so much better? Heck - they're great games. But they're also successful in the Asian market. Will we ever catch up to them. Dunno. The WoW guys have a bit of a track record on us...years of producing amazing games. Who ever heard of Cryptic before City of Heroes? There are LEGIONS of Blizzard fans - of course they'd play WoW!

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You're right, Jack. Who had ever heard of Cryptic before CoH? Personally, having played Diablo 2 (for a long time) and waited on the fabled 1.10 patch for over 2 years, Blizzard left a bad taste in my mouth. Then going and spending a year on Star Wars Galaxies, I quickly learned SOE's policy toward casual gamers was severely lacking.

Moving to City of Heroes was like a dream come true! BUT, after a little over a year in CoH, the dream became a nightmare. Guess we all gotta wake up sometime.

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of course they'd play WoW! And it's a phenomenal game!

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*applauds* Very, very good, Jack! Doesn't it feel good to be honest and not politician-like with your misleading falsehoods? You're right. It IS a phenomenal game. To think, I used to decry WoW...

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but i am sure even more heroes will soon take up the battle against the villains of the Rogue Isles.

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I wouldn't count on that.

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I have a long-winded question, and i apologize in advance if this topic has been brought up elsewhere in the thread, i just don't have time to go through the whole thing.

As far as i know, you can't have a sidekick until level 10. Assuming that once you hit 10, you have someone who is your sidekick every single moment you are logged into CoH, and you take your hero to level 50, and then hunt down every single other badge in the game (including the new damage badges and mezzed badges and shadow shard tfs and everything else). . .

Would you even be CLOSE to achieving the sixth sidekick time badge?

Because i find this badge to be the most ridiculous of them all. Even Paragon (the badge ) seems nigh unattainable even if i spend tons of time sidekicked just for the purpose of running up the badge timer. I dont mind that there are 6 sidekick badges, or that the sixth takes an obscene amount of time, but theres a difference between obscene and impossible.

If the times required for the sidekick badges could be looked at, i would appreciate it.

Thank you for your time. you may now go back to your regularly scheduled rantings about the shadow shard tf badges.

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/ignore fusion blast

Hey, FB. Sals and I looked at the sixth badge and figured it out. A character would literally have to spend six months (yes, it's that many hours) doing nothing but having someone SKed, 24 hours a day, to achieve the sixth mentoring badge.

How's that for keeping the badge whores subscribing?

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They've got to kidding, nearly a damn week to do all four Shard TF's with almost NO reward, hell how many people have even done it, it can't take that much to data mine. That is a world class boner decision, well at least I5 gives 50's something new to do.......... oops my bad..

~A


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I don't understand these gripes... what if the Shard TFs were never intended to award badges of any kind? Ever? What would you complain about then? That you "wasted" all that time playing through a storyline you never read... in hopes that, someday, it might provide you with another lame looking badge that does nothing for you at all?
These TFs are game content. They're stories put together to add flavor and history to the game. Their sole purpose is NOT to provide you with a badge.

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You're absolutely correct! I don't even bother with TFs anymore. All they give is a badge that does nothing.

OH! Wait! They ORIGINALLY were INTENDED to give you a SOUVENIR - TELLING YOU THE STORY OF THE CONTENT.



Players: Hi. We want more content, souvenirs back and more badges. This game is really fun!

Devs: We are adding new badges. The defeat badges will take no time at all. The others...well, they'll take you months. The new badges for the things you've already done...well, we can't be troubled to datamine these badges for you, it would take too much time and we don't really care about you that much. As for souvenirs, we have no plans to reinstate them at this time, as CONTENT is no longer a part of the "vision".

Players: Oh. What did you guys do - hire former SWG devs? Ya know what, nevermind. Keep your game and your "vision". Hope you enjoy it. We'll find another game.

Devs: Wait. Here, let us make it up to you. Here's an invitation to beta test CoV!

Some players: Ooo! CoV beta! Yay!

Smart players: Go dump yourself. We wouldn't play any of your games even if you paid US, at this point. Choke on your "vision".



There! Clear enough?

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I'll pop in here so you guys have a new target.

The original Task Force Datamine took 3 months to finish. That was to go over 2 months worth of data.

We now have 18 months worth of data. We looked for a more effecient solution, but our estimates still come out at 2 years to datamine and get you your badges.

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Ooo! New target!

Simplest solution: If the character has the souvenir - they get a badge! (Sorry for those who didn't get the souvenir.)

Which reminds me...

Let me get this straight, we spend hours to get TF badges because you took souvenirs out (months ago)...you're refusing to datamine to find which characters deserve badges, but you CAN datamine enough to find out ways to "curb herding" and prevent certain PAYING CUSTOMERS from having fun how they want to...you won't respond to official threads OR threads from people attempting to make logical validations as to why you shouldn't nerf something...

Content: deceased. Shiny badges: critical condition. Nerfs: thriving!

Yeah. You better hope CoV brings in a LOT of new customers (tens of thousands) or you're going to find that your "vision" just suffered from our (we PAYING CUSTOMERS) lack of interest and decided to send you to the unemployment line.

Have fun explaining the "vision" to marketing and have a great day!