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I agree with everything in your post, except possibly this which was a bit unclear to me.

This post was made on "ALL ACCESS: Player Questions" in the thread "Because I cannot post on Liberty server threads"

Tony,

My GF and I as well as 2 friends, are willing to help with time and financial support. While I know it’s not a lot we can afford upwards of $150 a month towards a realistic project. We have also discussed that if NCSoft is actually willing to sell PS to the community and the community has a viable plan, then we our willing to invest between $5K and $20K in a community/PS venture.

We our willing to do this because we feel that The Game, The Devs, and the Community have all been fantastic and we have many fond memories. Last nights gathering with Arbiter Hawk at the “Paragon Dance Party”, just reaffirms that belief. It’s just icing on this cake that I seem to remember that when PDP was released, it was stated that one of the Devs had made it during their lunch breaks.

Edit: Xenophage says what I mean better and with fewer words.

Others have pointed the out many flaws in your argument, but I am surprised no one has pointed out the logical inconsistency of your first post since in later posts you resort to asking WWBD (What Would Batman Do.)

Short Response> I can see adding a timer function and a few other features to AE so that such missions could be designed by players. Other wise the proposed system would likely run into many of the same issues that PvP did, as well as give support to the claim that the game is "Pay to Win" OR upsets those who pay. I doubt that very many players would feel a Dev designed competition system to be a good use of Dev time.





Detailed Response> A good way of doing this is that the Devs MIGHT (S Code Rant) be able to "easily" add a Timer system, a few arena maps, and a few more enemies (Pylons, etc) to AE. Maybe even add a powers disabled feature like Ouroborus/Arena. This would allow those who want to compete create challenges and to debate what maps, levels and mobs are fair and leave the Devs out of it. It would allow for non competitive uses (Personal Best Times, Testing of different Builds, etc) thus being useful to a wider range of players, and would avoiding the badge and PL problems listed bellow.


By comparison a Dev created one would have a difficult time avoiding the same elements that limited PvP to a minority of the player base and would likely upset a percentage of players in the same way PvP has.

1) PvP powers worked differently then they did in PvE in order to achieve "balance". This alienated many PvEers as well as some PvPers from the system. Even in your opening proposal this is already occurring. For the 4th challenge, You are calling for eliminating "Resurrect" a perfectly valid power used by my main character.

Would rules be added limiting fly (range = less damage), Phantom Army (invincible taunt tank), Phase shift (Can't touch this), and many others? If they are added then you alienate many players. If you don't add them then certain builds will have significant advantages and be FOTM.

2) The Devs can expect even more complaints since what ever maps and enemies they choose will favor certain builds and result in criticism of the system.

3) Specialty builds and teams WILL win. I can't see a reasonable way to prevent this. This will result in the perception that the average player can't possibly get their name in lights.

4) All about the Benjamins. PvP predated money having an impact like it does now so a new and significant problem would be that those with money will have tricked out builds and powers that the poorer VIP players will lack. , Money will give a decided build advantage just with

a) "Enhancement boosters",
b) tens of thousands of "Super Pack" merits convertible to billions of influence allowing any in game enhancement to be bought at Wentworths
c) "Store Bought Enhancments"

And what about all of the store bought inspirations and powers? Would the Devs disable them in this system and upset there "Paying" customers, or would they allow them, thus placing the bar that much higher for the poorer VIPs.

4a) Vet rewards. Allow them and even more players will not bother to use the system, disallow them and you risk upsetting your most loyal customers.

5) Future additions. What happens when a new power (As an example the other new Power Pools like Sorcery) or a change to an old power (Time Bomb I25) is released that breaks the system even further? What if it's free? What if it's paid for? No matter what decision the Devs make people will be upset.

6) Badges for high score. Just like PvP, this will upset a segment of badgers while at the same time another segment of badgers will likely find a way around the system (AFK Farms, Standing in Sirens Call safe areas, etc) which will upset those using the system the "correct way."

7) "PLing"/"Extreme Farming" for rewards. How often have the Devs added a new system, Only to find that certain players had figured out how to gain rewards faster then the Devs liked then wound up nerfing the new system and upsetting not only some of the PLers but also some of those who first supported the system and even used it the "correct way".

Right off the top we have AE, PvP ranking system, AE, TF reward system (Speed Katie and Speeden), AE, Portal Corp missions (Wolf Farms, etc), AE and in case I forgot, AE!



And when all is said and done how many players will use the system? Compare that with how many players will be upset over the amount of Dev time needed to create and maintain it.

This would be a major mistake for the Devs.

I owned a comic and game store from 1994 to 2002. I knew it was probably going to be a good day whenever a well dressed, new customer in his mid 20's walked in the door. Often it would turn out that they had last read comics 4-8 years earlier right before they went off to college and between the lack of time due to studying & socializing and the cost of college leaving them a total of $2.42 cents a month for their hobbies they had cut out there comic habit.

But having graduated and landing that $50,000+ a year job these customers returned to their roots with thousands of dollars a month to spend. They would open up a saver for the 30+ titles that they had always wanted and would buy every back issue for the past 4-8 years that I had in stock. There were several times when the total would hit in the thousands of dollars.

I was around long enough to see the same thing happen with teens who had played Magic the Gathering. They started returning in 1999 and would invariably want those cards they could never get as teenagers. I could count on any Lotus, Mox, or other Power of 9 card to sell quickly on those days for $200-$1000+.

CoH has been around long enough to see this same scenario. Kids who played between 2004-2008 are now graduating college and with the ability for old players to catch up and buy all those veteran powers the Devs have the potential for some fantastic sales. I would not be at all surprised if a good percentage of the the current market success is specifically from players, 22-26 years of age who have been absent for 4+ years. If this is the case then every year a new batch of college graduates will enter the work force and return to Paragon City after a 4 year absence.

That is they will return as long as their favorite characters that they have fond memories of haven't had their name taken away.


As a side note one of those customers is still a friend and played CoH from 2004 until he married and had a son in 2009. I expect him to return with his son sometime around 2015-2017 when his son is old enough to start playing,assuming the Devs don't take any actions to alienate him.

Scarlet Shocker, Thanks for the info.

It occurred to me as I wrote my last post that unless Emperor Cole was an idiot he must have studied the history of his opponents to see how they fought and to learn how they waged war. That history would have shown him exactly what fate awaited the last Emporer who fought against and was defeated by America and her allies.

That emperor and his people who at the height of the war were hated far more then Cole. An emperor who's military attacked America by surprise during a time of peace and who's military murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians and war prisoners. An emperor with enough authority to order his military and civilians to fight to the end, destroying any thing of value and likely would have seen that order carried out. An emperor who was told by the enemy that only an unconditional surrender would be acceptable and who knew that such a surrender meant he might well be executed by the the enemy.

Emperor Hirohito of Japan surrendered August 15th, 1945. He was allowed to remain emperor of his country. Japan within 20 years of the surrender was once again a major power and within 30 years was winning the automotive trade war with America. 44 years later when Hirohito died he did so knowing that his former enemy had become one of his countries staunchest allies and that Japan was arguably one of the ten most successful countries in the world. Now 66 years later Japanese culture has saturated America. We buy Toyota, Eat sushi, Read manga, and play Pokemon.

While "free and easy server transfers" substituting for a "cross server trial system", might have advantages they must be weighed against what others have mentioned as well as the following problems.


Super Group Effects
Since transferring results in you being removed from your SG this poses a number of problems.

Loss of Enhancements, Inspirations and Salvage.
Since you are no longer a member of the super group you will loose access to your items. This would require finding another SGG member who is online and can invite you back AND promote you to the proper rank. For some SGs or players who play at odd times this could be quite an ordeal.

Loss of Super Group Prestige, and Time in group.
It is natural for people to want to show off their achievements of having earned the most prestige or being the oldest member of the SG. If you transfer you loose that distinction.

Loss of Rank and possibly even membership:
In order to rejoin an SG you need another SG member with the proper rank to be on at the same time and invite you. A friend of mine spent over a month trying to meet with her SG's senior members just to get her rank and privileges raised when she had met the prestige and time requirements for her promotion and access to the more secure bins.



Global effects.

Change of community:
This has both positive and negative effects, but it needs to be considered. Allowing unlimited transfers with no cost may well change the feel of servers and cause a migration and consolidation of certain types of players. Examples of this would be RPers, Villains, Praetorians, Badgers, PvPers, etc

In fact an example of this can be seen with PvPers. There have been numerous attempts to consolidate PvPers since at least I9 on too just one server, but one of the big road blocks has been the cost to transfer servers. If players could have freely tranfered there characters it is quite possible that PvP would have consolidated as early as I9 to just 1-3 servers leaving the other servers with NO PvPers. One might argue that freely transferring back and forth would negate the need to consolidate, but that is ONLY true if the issues I mentioned with Super Groups are solved since the importance of SG membership, ranking and enhancement access tended to be quite high within the PvP community.

This could of course be seen as a positive result by many including the Devs since as an example every villain being on the same server increases the chance of finding team mates Red Side. However unless new players are clearly informed of such server specific communities they might log into another server and literally never see another villain and assume no one plays them.

Massive over crowding of servers during events.
On Protector during the Praetorian invasion of Atlas Park when the Devs were involved we spawned 2 instances of Atlas. I shudder at the thought of literally thousands of players transferring their characters to Protector just so they can meet the Devs and get the free name addition that was handed out.


Other reasons.

Eliminates a source of revenue for the game:
Server transfers make money for the game and are used as a reward for VIP. Eliminating them will mean a loss of revenue from the ones that are sold and a reduction or loss of revenue from what ever they replace the reward to VIPs with. If they fail to replace the reward then they will loose goodwill and quite possibly some VIP memberships.


Server transfer don’t allow players to easily find Trial/TF groups.
The current system appears to be similar to the LFG tab. If you want in on an “Underground Trial” you select “UG” and wait continue fighting, marketing or whatever you enjoy for the 20 or so minutes until one starts on one of the 14? servers. If instead we relly on server transfers you and the 7 other solo players will need to hop between 14 servers hoping to find the league with 10 players looking for just 2 more to get started. In this case most likely the league will start as soon as they get 2 more players leaving 5 players without a trial OR worse still the league falls apart since none of the 7 players bothered to check the right server in the right zone or channel that had the league forming.


Loss of Name:
Yes you said “what if”, but unless there is a solution to this problem then it probably doesn’t matter if any of the other reasons I and others have mentioned are solved.



Reference:
Here is an example of just one recent thread dealing with PvPer migration and server transfer. Pre I-13 this was a far more heated topic.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...light=transfer