Cantatus

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Personally, I'd love to take a journey inside of the spacecraft, perhaps to defeat some Rikti AV? Come to think of it, the Rikti don't even have an AV do they?

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Well, I was originally an advocate of the STF being about the Rikti (because Recluse and his cronies are people I've fought to death already anyway - and CoH and CoV shouldn't be mirror images of each other)....but now I'm guessing (hoping...praying...whatever) that when they move the storyline forward in Issue 10-11 that they'll bring back Hero 1 and that we'll be able to enter that Rikti ship...

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Definitely agree with you on the "mirror" comment, and hoping right along with you.

Yeah, unfortunately, I have to join in on the dissent as well. My biggest complaint with these events has to be how repetitive they become. For Christmas, you had to save Baby New Year 4 times. For this event you had to defeat Snaptooth 5 times. It wouldn't be so bad if there were different tilesets or different villain groups or even some sort of story here. It's repetitive, because we're expected to do the exact same mission multiple times to get all the rewards. It's even worse when you have alts, which most people do, that want the rewards as well. I ran the Winter Event over a dozen times, and I know some that ran it significantly more than that. It really sucks the fun out of these events when it's the same missions over and over and over and over. At least the Valentine's event tried to give some reasoning behind this. There was none I could discern for why I had to keep rescuing that dumb baby.

I don't expect them to change these events from the ground up or even add to all of them to the degree they did with the Winter Event, but it really can't be asking too much for these events to have a little variety in them or to not require so much tediousness.

I think something also needs to be done so veterans of this game aren't cut out of so much of the event. I'm not really complaining about badges from previous years being available, but when there's so little that's new, those of us who have been here since release have barely anything to do in the event. For this one, all I had to do was defeat Snaptooth twice. Halloween was even worse.

So, I suppose the nominative thing here is: variety. Either have it so these events have some randomness to them or make is so we don't have to do the same mission several times.

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To buck the trend, I like the look of Spines as is. Not all powers should be clean-looking.

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Agreed. I think it's one of the best looking powersets in the game and partially for that reason. I love my Spines Scrapper.

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It could also just be a change in animations for a claws or spines power.

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Or it could be the Nemesis Staff seen from a strange angle.

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Okay, fine. It's not the Nemesis Staff.

It is *not* a new powerset or a re-do of spines or any other powerset. Sorry to disappoint.

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Thank you for taking the time to clarify on this and not letting our hopes get up needlessly.

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I was trying to figure out where he was standing but couldn't make much sense of it. It sorta looks like IP, but I just can't tell. I also wish that shot was zoomed out just a bit so we could see if there is a ring around States' feet.

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Yeah, looks sort of like IP to me. You can see the edge of a bridge on the left. I wonder if that's where they're putting his TF. Seems sort of odd that that would be the location.

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True, it does seem kind of odd that you would put it in Independence Port to get to the Rouge Isles .

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I mean odd in terms of making level 50s go to a level 30 zone to get their TF. It'd be a little annoying to have the TF in one place and a lot of the high level characters 2 zones away. Peregrine Island seems equally viable for taking a boat to Rogue Isles.

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Well, don’t they currently make level 50’s go to Atlas Park to enter the new PVP zone? It’s not really much of a stretch.

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Good point. It could be worse.

Used to be our Hazard Zone was off of Crey's Folly and 4 zones away, but they wised up to that and added the portal in Peregrine. Not sure what made them reimplement such an annoyance with Recluse's Victory.

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I was trying to figure out where he was standing but couldn't make much sense of it. It sorta looks like IP, but I just can't tell. I also wish that shot was zoomed out just a bit so we could see if there is a ring around States' feet.

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Yeah, looks sort of like IP to me. You can see the edge of a bridge on the left. I wonder if that's where they're putting his TF. Seems sort of odd that that would be the location.

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True, it does seem kind of odd that you would put it in Independence Port to get to the Rouge Isles .

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I mean odd in terms of making level 50s go to a level 30 zone to get their TF. It'd be a little annoying to have the TF in one place and a lot of the high level characters 2 zones away. Peregrine Island seems equally viable for taking a boat to Rogue Isles.

It's the same 4 screenshots that were posted with Positron's MMORPG.com interview with 4 that were previously released.

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I was trying to figure out where he was standing but couldn't make much sense of it. It sorta looks like IP, but I just can't tell. I also wish that shot was zoomed out just a bit so we could see if there is a ring around States' feet.

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Yeah, looks sort of like IP to me. You can see the edge of a bridge on the left. I wonder if that's where they're putting his TF. Seems sort of odd that that would be the location.

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I'd also like to know why Cryptic hasn't taken advantage of many possible merchandising opportunities that exist with CoX because of its ties with comics.

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I still want my Rikti Monkey plushie!

I'm betting this is more NCSoft's fault though since they run the store that sells the shirts and such. It does surprise me how little they've even tried in this regard, even in regards to something like the shirts. We've had the same CoH shirt since the store opened and the same CoV one since CoV's launch. I wonder how many people might be willing to buy a shirt based on their archetype or one with a popular CoH/CoV saying on it. They really have plenty of money making opportunities with this that are more mainstream than things like HeroClix.

Yeah, personal attacks on the developers has annoyed me in every MMOG I've played. I have yet to encounter a situation where the developer actually deserves being called names or the calls for them to be employed (or worse). Criticize the work, not the person.

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Statesman, your high-road responses seem vaguely inhuman. I would respect you much more if you made veiled jabs at detractors or perhaps called them names. People are certainly entitled to have an opinion, but sharing it is another matter. Since you've got all the inside information on the game, you can let people know when they say things that are terribly stupid. Otherwise, they may stay under the impression that the words they spew out are good ideas instead of intellectual vomit.

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It's professionalism, and Statesman deserves a lot of praise for having the thick skin that he does. If Statesman were to start making jabs back, how do you think that would look to newcomers to the game that aren't familiar with the situation? I know I've encountered other MMOGs where the devs make shots back, and they've just come across as mean and amateurish. And then, of course, they just get it back from the players just as much. It has to be difficult for the devs to hold their tongues like they have to do, but I'd think ignoring it and being magnanimous would be one of the best ways to handle the situation. It's just sad that posts from the devs have dropped off so much in the past year, likely partially because of stuff like this.

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There were plans for an official expansion like WoW's Burning Crusade (as an example).

Instead they took the content for it and are putting it in the free Issues. 9 - 11 to be precise.

At this time crying about CoX dying is like saying who the next President is. It's WAY to early.

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Oh good to hear. That's smart of them.

I can't really call it "nice" of them like I was going to, because you know the reason they didn't do it is because I1-8 were free, and there'd be a huge uproar.
UNLESS they didn't plan on making you pay for it (which is unlikely because packaging costs money, hense why they stopped the free comic books).

In fact, I would have been livid if I'd have to pay for the issues -- BECAUSE they've all been free in the past.

Glad they kept the free issue idea going strong.

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There were gonna be tons of content in one paid expansion PLUS the free issues that are still coming. It would have been a good boost for new content if you ask me. New power sets for each AT, new Archetype, zones, etc. were gonna be in there, and I'm just saying, it would have been nice. Sure, all those things are coming in I9-I11, but hey, I'd prefer that we have a paid expansion and I10-I11. Call me selfish, but I just think it would have been a positive step. I'm not sure how it would have affected the game financially though, which was most likely the problem.

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That's actually a good point that I hadn't thought about before.

All in all, I'll just be satisfied if I9-I11 shapes up to be as good as they've been hyping it up to be. Free content or boxed content, as long as they can keep innovating this game, I can't complain too much.

My main concern, though, is that they cut the expansion, because they're too busy with other things, and we're actually losing out on the content. Those 3 Issues will have to be substantially bigger than what we're currently getting for Issues for the decision to be to our benefit. Of course, it's more than a year off before I11 is even announced, so nothing worth worrying about at this point. What they've revealed so far has been fairly promised. We're supposed to get 1 new powerset per archetype and, I believe, an epic archetype, nothing to sneeze at there.

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As for what servers Jack Emmert plays on, that i have no clue about.

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I recall him saying he primarily "plays on a server that begins with a V." I could be wrong about who said that, but pretty sure it was him. (And, of course, that could've changed since he said that.)

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Sheesh, the devs sure are lurking tonight.

Quick! Someone see if they can trick them into revealing more I9 and Inventions info!

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Soon (TM)

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But... that's not soon enough!

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Rick and I came up with Crypteia since we'd both worked on Cryptozoology first. We were trying to come up with names based on the "crypt-" part...

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Ah, makes sense. Never heard the second part of the story before.

Sheesh, the devs sure are lurking tonight.

Quick! Someone see if they can trick them into revealing more I9 and Inventions info!

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The Crypteia were Spartan warriors who preyed on the Helots--ancient Sparta's slave population. If a Helot became troublesome, the Crypteia would stealthily strike.

Dakan and Emmert were graduate students who liked creating role-playing games similar to Dungeons & Dragons, which is played with pencil, paper and dice. Dakan and Emmert thought Crypteia would be a cool name for a game company. Rogers thought the word was, well, a little too cryptic. He suggested calling their new company Cryptic Studios. The name stuck.

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*scratches head* I thought the origin of the name "Cryptic Studios" had something to do with "cryptozoology."

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Boooooooo! They just need to be toned down. In the case of Shivans, they're ridiculously easy to get. The fact that they made them that powerful in the first place for such little effort surprises me.

If they tone down the nukes, though, they'll have to make the crap you go through to get just one of them easier. Warburg's a warzone where everyone, even other heroes or villains, are gunning for you. They almost seem reasonable so far as power is concerned considering how tough it is to get one on a busy day.

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Think that's the issue with both of them. I doubt the Developers ever intended for people to be able to get them so easily. The idea was that these rewards would be so good that it would entice people into the PvP zones, where they'd PvP. Of course, since neither of these things involve PvP to get, it's not entirely surprising to me that people go purely for these things and leave once they're gotten (something I pointed out in beta...). I know I have. I can get the Shivan by myself in probably 10-15 minutes. Sometimes, people I run into will help me since they're just there for the same thing.

Perhaps if they want to change these powers, they should try to incorporate more of the "game" into them. I know that might be unpopular, but at the same time, I'd suggest (as I have for months) that we see similar games in the PvE zones.

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Just like when they tryed to kill Comic Books so long ago.

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If thats this guys goal is too kill video games, im gonna personaly hunt him down.

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Video games just can't be killed at this point. The industry is a juggernaut. It's bigger than comic books ever were, some say bigger than television, and even rivals the movie industry. It takes in billions of dollars a year. The government would be stupid to do anything that could potentially kill off video games. It'd just cause companies like Microsoft and EA to move over to another country, hurting our economy.

It does seem out of place, but then consider the fact that it was just about 50 years ago that Wertham's book incited the public, led to a Senate hearing, and created the CCA. Seems like a good connection to draw. Show them one of the most controversial mediums our parents or grandparents lived through and link it with the most controversial one of today.

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I "loved" the leap of logic when they said the 9/11 terrorists trained on flight sims so therefore a kid who plays GTA will go around killing cops.

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I thought they went to flight school in Oklahoma and Florida anyways. But, I always love the argument that you can learn something from playing a video game. Play GTA? You're going to start stealing cars and mowing down prostitutes. By that logic, they should be commending Cryptic. I mean, I just started stopping bank robbers and muggings just the other day!

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Skeleton crew? Guys, let's not jump to conclusion here. First, Cryptic Studios hasn't layed anyone off. A quick glance shows we're hiring!

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You haven't laid anyone off, but you've also started work on at least two games. So, even if you had the same crew you had before (which I'm sure it's more), they'd be spread thinner, right? Is the Cryptic CoH team as big as it always has been or has shifting around people (like Geko) made it so CoH has less. Secondly, you're hiring... is that for all projects or just the ones that aren't released yet?

Not that I'm saying Ilr is correct in his criticisms, but it doesn't sound like you addressed the complaints exactly, unless when you're saying "Cryptic Studios," you're referring to the CoH development team too.

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Constructive criticism consists of well thought out posts laying out the problem, the solutions available in your mind, the reasons you suggest these solutions, and why people may agree with you. You do *not* speculate on how stupid the developers are or how moronic a given system is - instead you present ideas on how to fix it, and what exactly is wrong with it. No personal attacks, no stupidity, no horrendously flawed logic.

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While there's plenty of inflammatory commentary in this forum, there's plenty of reasoned critiques as well. Daikon's point was that the good gets tarred with the less than good frequently, perhaps reflexively, and often with scathing rebukes of things that were never said by the reply target. Taser's replies in hot topic threads are good example.

Yes, there are plenty of less than useful threads out there, but I think some people are just building up resentment from bad apples and take it out on good apples. Those people have little patience for the occasional "ZOMG!" post that pops up in an otherwise reasonable thread and give into the temptation to dump on a thread just because a couple of numnuts insert "ZOMG!" into an otherwise interesting discussion. I've found that a good chunk of "ZOMG!" posts are made by the same people, and using the forum software to 'Ignore' them out of a thread cuts down on a lot of shoulder-chippage, which in turn cuts down on the "whining about whiners".

Your mileage may vary.

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Exactly the issue I've brought up a few times in the past couple weeks.

By the way, what happened to your old handle?

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Events take some time, I'm sure, but they're important because they can create peaks of interest, and they're a good investment because most of them just use already-created resources with a little bit of mission-coding. It also lets them try out new tech, like the co-op teaming, in a non-permanent fashion.

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I agree to some extent. Like I said, I absolutely love the holiday events. I'm just trying to bring up an idea that might get the Issues out at a more reasonable time. If something like that has to be sacrificed to get Issues out faster, it's a tough choice, but one I wouldn't be too upset with. I'm just trying to figure out what's changed so much in the past year that has made it so Issues are taking a couple months longer to come out. That's one of the things that it could possibly be.

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The fact that they take away from Issues can be evidenced by Positron previously stating that they choose not to add any zone events in I7 because they chose to focus on beefing up these events instead.

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Apples and orangutans. The issue at hand involved events like the winter event, which are seasonal and temporary. The justification for your counter argument uses zone events like SC firebombings and Lusca, which are permanent game additions (i.e, content).

What you're saying, in essence, is that since Posi stated that they didn't add permanent event content, it proves that temporary events take time from the mainline development. One does not follow the other.

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No, that's not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying exactly what I typed. Positron said he choose to forego adding zone events because he was having people work on the holiday events instead.

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Boomtown: Can you tell us whether Issue 8 will be marked by zone events (driving the story of CoH forward) like it’s been hinted at previously?

Positron: Actually the time for “events” for Issue 8 was spent on improving the Halloween event from two years ago, and improving last year’s Winter event as well, making sure it was ready for the Holiday season.

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That's the thing I'm taking issue with. Like I said, it might not be the case at all. Maybe it's entirely different things that have made Issues come out at such a glacial speed recently, it's probably more than one thing, something I don't doubt. But it certainly looks like these play a part from statements like that.

All in all, I'm just hoping something can be changed to get things back to the way they used to be. Maybe that's a fools dream, but it's one worth having, I'd say.

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The original Halloween was a prelude to Croatoa.

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I'll give you the Valentine's event, but the only "trying out" Halloween had was by showing off a few of the NPC models.

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The events don't take away from development, they're sneak peeks at what's ahead. They are not throw-away. We have fun, they get to try out new mechanics. It's win-win.

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They do take away from development because they have to program the new scripts, make the new mobs, create the new missions, etc. all of which could be spent on permanent content. The fact that they take away from Issues can be evidenced by Positron previously stating that they choose not to add any zone events in I7 because they chose to focus on beefing up these events instead.

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Issues are big but don't forget the between-issues work. Last year's Valentines & Winter events were pretty big things and didn't have any issue associated with them. All those 'little' changes between issues seem to be coming down at the same rate, as near as I can tell. So why would the big ticket stuff be slowing down while the relatively small stuff keeps going?

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Hate to say it for as much as I used to hope for more events, but I'd be fully willing to sacrifice the events if it meant faster or larger Issues. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the events, but at most, they're temporary content. I'd much rather they spend a bulk of their time on the content that is going to make the game better for the long haul rather than a month here and there.

Personally, this whole thread is sort of depressing me. It's making me long for the way things were the first year of the game. It seemed like every time you turned around, there was new content coming or being discussed. One Issue would launch, and within weeks, the next one was already being talked about. Nowadays, it's just too sparse to the point where there are these huge lulls. Mostly, it's just sad that, for the first time since the game launched, I'm considering letting my account lapse for a while. I love this game and think it's one of the most innovative in the MMOG genre, but things just seem to be going in the wrong direction unfortunately.

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Why could it be happening?

* CoX staff reductions to concentrate efforts more on newer titles (ie, the Marvel game)
* Increased game complexity (that is, issues contain features for both Heroes and Villains; also may include bugs caused by enhancing engine features, such as PhysX support and advanced graphics)
* Larger issues. (Although I'd say the issues have gotten smaller, not larger, saving the villain content of I7)
* Less "precoded" - that is, I have the feeling a lot of features, and perhaps even areas, were half-baked into the game and cut from the release scheduled and rolled into areas. For example, I'd bet that the Hollows and possibly the Shadow Shard were being worked on at least in part pre-release. Obviously PI and the RCS were. Of course capes were a work in progress even pre-release


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My theory has always been that CoV spread them too thin. Creating an "expanshalone" was innovative and unique, but rather than adding new content on the game, it just created an entirely new game instead. So, now you have those people who were writing missions for CoH having to do it for CoH and CoV, because missions made for CoH can't be played by villains and vice versa. That either means having fewer people concentrating on CoH or having the same group spend fewer hours on CoH so they can do CoV too. Seems to be fairly evident that this change in Issue release speed came after CoV's launch.

Sort of sad though. I remember a time where you'd get one Issue and not even be done enjoying it when the next Issue started getting hyped. Now they're spread out so far, that I get bored between Issues and my eye starts to wander. I really hope they can pick up the pace.

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Didn't Cricket mention something about getting releases on a quicker schedule? What that translates into considering the release schedule of I7 & I8, I don't know.

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Yeah, and previously CuppaJo said we'd have bigger, further apart issues. So far, I don't think we've seen either...

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Serious question here. Is the company making roughly the same amount of money each month as it has in the past? If so, why do we have fewer devs? I've heard that our subscription numbers are not down, so what's the deal? Does all the money spent on CoH/V go back into CoH/V (and of course the expenses associated with the game) or do they get diverted into other projects like MUO or Auto Assault? Could poorly performing side projects be draining money from our game?

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I'd say it's the side projects thing. They have "multiple" MMOGs in the works. Obviously they're not going to rely entirely on new people for these MMOGs, so they'll pull people from CoH knowing they're experienced and can do the job. But maybe those slots don't get refilled. After all, CoH is already making them money, so why not cut back a little and use that excess to make their new, potentially more successful MMOG better? Saw the same thing with EQ when EQII was in development.